Saints ground is smaller, a lot newer and presumably not built on a swamp either so I can easily imagine their costs being less.

Which ones do it right?

Jut to clarify, if the Latics takeover goes ahead and we get the same deal, i.e. 10% of attendance revenue then it'll AGAIN be a great deal for Wigan R.L.

Ruddy is also not one who resorts to foul mouth language as it only shows the level of the person who says it

Are you really being that obtuse?

There's 1000's of sporting clubs, up and down the country & across the world, from football, RU, Cricket etc who all own their own grounds & which play a part in how those clubs generate money.

Why couldn't Wigan do the same?

Like I said, I'm happy to discuss the merits of if renting works for Wigan & you're probably right in that it does - just don't tell me that every sporting club that has a ground is somehow wishing they rented a ground like we do.

I think what he should have said was - which ones do it right for a stadium of similar size/age with similar match day income?

In RL, I think Leeds and Warrington all very successfully own, utilise and make profit from ground ownership. Its why both have revenues of between £2-4 million more than Wigan, despite being equal or smaller clubs in size and stature. If done correctly it can be extremely beneficial to own your own stadium, hence why I would be very pleased if Wigan picked up the DW for a snip at between 1.5-2million. IMO that would safeguard our future and give us the means to future sustainability, as well as possibly supporting latics avoid liquidation. BUT i think that needs to be assured before I would sign a deal on the stadium. Rental revenue from the Football would be critical to successfully running the stadium, so it actually doesn't help us if they go out of business. As has been highlighted, neither wigan or latics can realistically afford to run the stadium on their own.

That's a more complex question as it depends what brackets for comparing you decide to choose? You'll never find like for like with age and size of different stadiums.

For RL I like Wires approach. Leeds have potential with the work they are doing. Outside of RL I've been to a few RU grounds that I like (The Stoop, Welford Road, Franklin's Garden to name a small few), but they differ in regards to age and size. They still (when the world is normal) make a good go of it tho.

I don't think a stadium is the be all and end all btw. I'm just not as quick to dismiss it as absolute no no, when plenty of teams seem to make it work.

Tesco wont build us a stadium though

The only club in Super League which loses more cash than Wigan on an ongoing basis is Huddersfield - and their problem is a fundamental lack of fans rather than stadium setup.

If nothing else, I really don't think you need to worry about that any more.

Has wigan ever been a rugby town? Is there even such a place?

I'd wager there are far more people in wigan watch and/or play football they just don't support latics. How many different shirts do you see around town? United, city, everton, liverpool, latics and the odd other club.

I'd also bet most people on here follow or watch a football team.

Always seemed a pretty daft argument to me.

Hate the sport

It's the same BS kind of argument that City put forward i.e people from Manchester only support City.

Whether it's true, false or just daft stuff like that seems to stick.

Well the media still refer to wigan as a rugby town so I think we're ok

Yes. Junction 1 of the M6.

Smart

No matter what anyone thinks about who should own the Stadium and its financial implications, the fact remains that unlike Central Park , the club and town no longer stages Challenge Cup Semi Finals, Internationals, World Cup, Amateur and Schools Finals and other non Wigan games like it use to do which is not good for a club which claims to be the most well known Rugby League club in the country and possibly the world and also not good for the image of the town of Wigan still being a bastion of the Rugby League game.

All gone pear shaped since 1999 as a result of getting involved in having a too large a capacity joint stadium and a pipe dream of one man and a Council of Wigan becoming a top Premiership football town and attracting new investment to the town.

As the song says, " things ain't what they use to be".

Surely owning stadium would enable all of those things to come back? This is my point around the fact that running the stadium can be profitable if done correctly. ONE international - based on average £35 per ticket and rental to the RFL at 20% of ticket revenue brings 175-225k into the coffers. Challenge cup semi could bring another 100k. One concert 300k, Naming rights of the stadium 0.5-1m. That's all the current losses wiped out. Then manage the ground properly for business conferences /weddings etc (When the world is back open up)...it really isn't hard for the stadium to turn a profit IMO & be an additional income stream rather than a loss.

I don't have enough in depth knowledge to know whether it could be made to work financially, but it's pretty obvious you're counting on way too much going in our favour every single year there.

- Other stadia want one of those two CC semis too, and they don't tend to sell well anyway.
- We don't even have a big international game in the UK every year, and again you're competing with many other stadia for those one or two games in years that they are over here.
- Wigan isn't exactly a key stop on any decent sized band's schedule when we are on the doorstep of Manchester and Liverpool, who have loads of venues, far bigger populations and better transport links.
- I can't think what businesses (other than Wigan-based ones) are going to go out of their way to put conferences at the DW. It's not in a city, it's not near a train station or motorway junction, and it's in competition with Manchester, Liverpool and even Warrington. Add in that for many, Wigan is seen as a pit town stuck in the 70s, not exactly how businesses want to portray themselves.

I'm not saying none of those things would happen, but all of them every year? No chance.

Pepsi had their annual conference there last year, not many companies bigger than them, you right though its accounting like that in the 90s that broke us once we got knocked out of the cup

Seriously? I'm amazed if that's true! I can't find anything about that on the internet do you have a link?

Edit - PepsiCo's annual conference was in New York according to their website. That makes more sense...

McDonalds regualrly held conferences there in the early days.

The problem is that there are now many more modern stadiums and hotels which offer better facilities. Regular upkeep of these facilities is needed and the stadium hasn't had that.

As for concerts....Little Mix played (or were due to) at St Helens. If the price is right they'll play here.

With the advent of "Zoom" etc more and more conferences will be done on line. Before I retired we held our European "kick off" meeting in Barcelona. The company hired The Nou Camp stadium for the presentation night and Gaudis house for another night.

I would often travel to Brussels, Aberdeen, London, Madrid etc for meetings. Video conferencing has cut that down to a minimum.